What You Can’t See

by Allison Brennan

  He didn’t answer until she was back with two steaming mugs, the vanilla teasing her nose as she carried it across the room.

  “I quit because of changes in the space program that I didn’t like,” he finally said.

  For the first time since she met him hours earlier, she had the feeling he wasn’t being honest. “What kind of changes?” she asked.

  He took the tea she offered, a glimmer of distaste in his eyes. Either he hated the smell of vanilla, or the turn of the conversation. “Lax safety.”

  It was only partially true, she could tell. He avoided her gaze, his whole body had stiffened.

  “Let me guess,” she said, finding a little space among the candles and crystals for her cup. “It had something to do with Michael.”

  He sloshed a drop of hot tea over the edge of the mug, swearing under his breath as it hit his thumb. He wiped his hand on his trousers. “Like I said, you’re a very good guesser.”

  “Sometimes I guess,” she admitted. “Sometimes I read body language. And sometimes I really know.”

  He sipped the tea, and winced at the taste. Or the idea that she really knew.

  “So, tell me about him,” Arianna said. “Good friend? Fellow astronaut? School buddy?”

  The smile disappeared; the relaxed attitude was instantly replaced with rigidity. “No, Arianna. Don’t go there.”

  She curled a finger into the handle of her mug to lift it. Part of her wanted to push, but her gut told her not to. She knew which part to listen to.

  “Then let me go somewhere else.” She leaned back, and looked into his eyes. “I really appreciate what you did tonight. It was brave and kind and I know you didn’t want to do it, but it meant a lot to me.”

  He put his cup down, obviously done with his one and only taste of African tea. “What was in the bag that you were willing to risk both our lives to get?”

  “Something that belonged to my mother, something she gave me when she died.”

  “That ring you’re wearing?”

  This time she spilled her tea, gasping softly when it splashed her thigh. He was up for a cloth instantly, grabbing one from the kitchen counter.

  “How’d you know?” she asked.

  “You didn’t have it on in the lot,” he explained, placing the towel on the wet spot on her jeans as he sat down next to her. “Now you do. I’m just putting two and two together.”

  “So you’re a really good guesser, too.”

  His hand made the tea spill even warmer. “I’m a scientist. We like to call it a hypothesis.”

  “Yes, it was my mother’s.” She placed her hand over his, closing her fingers over his much bigger ones. “Let’s make a deal, Chase. We won’t talk about my ring, and I won’t channel your friend Michael. That way, neither one of us will make any more guesses or hypotheses.” At his dubious look, she added, “And, yes, you were right. Going after my ring was dangerous and maybe stupid, but I am eternally grateful to you.”

  “You don’t have to keep thanking me. It’s my job.” He removed the tea towel, folding it into an exact square before he set it on the table. “But don’t do anything stupid again, because I don’t like risking my life.”

  “Yeah, right. You’ve gone into outer space in a tin can and you throw yourself in front of bullets to save strangers, and you own a car built to cruise at two hundred miles an hour. You like risk very, very much. It’s quite a dichotomy, a man who exudes safety but lives for risk.”

  “I don’t live for risk,” he countered. “And the car’s rented. I drive a…plane.”

  She laughed with him, then leaned forward to touch his chin with her thumb, rubbing the sexy stubble. “So, do we have a deal? No ring talk, no Michael talk.” It would work well, because without the ring, she couldn’t really do anything but guess about his lost friend.

  “On one condition,” he said, taking her hand off his face, but holding on to her fingers. “You stock this place with coffee.”

  “What? You don’t like my attitude and spice?”

  “I like your attitude and spice,” he said. “But this tea tastes like dirt and water.”

  She slipped out of his grip. One more touch, and she was going to give in and kiss him. Then she had a feeling she’d get shot down, and have to listen to a little lecture on why bodyguards shouldn’t kiss the women they protect.

  “Sorry about the dirt and water. We’ll buy coffee tomorrow. And now…” She stood, and he, being a gentleman, did the same. “I’m going to take a shower and wash the underside of a honeywagon off me.”

  “You do that,” he said. “I’ll set myself up out here.”

  She gave him a wistful smile, her fingers already on the zipper of her hoodie. “I guess I’m wrong, then.” She lowered it three inches, slowly enough to pull his attention to her chest. “You don’t like risk that much, or you’d follow me into the shower.” One more inch, just to see what he was made of. “You know, just to be sure I’m safe.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders, turned her toward the hall, and gave her a very gentle nudge. “You’re safest if I stay out here.”

  Chapter Four

  “I’ VE GOT NEWS ,” Lucy announced. “A lot of it.”

  Chase flipped the cell phone to his other ear, glancing at the bedroom door that had remained firmly shut since Arianna had disappeared behind it the night before. It was eleven A.M. but she still hadn’t emerged, giving him plenty of time to work, and ache for a cup of coffee he didn’t yet have.

  He ached for a lot of things, to be honest, including food that wasn’t organic, natural, or made with tofu. But after a sleepless night on a too-small sofa, the need for caffeine had nearly won out over hunger—and the more basic, masculine needs that had tortured him ever since Arianna’s not-so-subtle suggestion that they shower together.

  “What is it, Luce?”

  “We traced the source of those e-mails with what you sent this morning. They were from a server at Cal Tech University.”

  Bingo. The science geek. “That makes sense. Some student interviewed her and she said it got nasty. Got a name?”

  “We have a few, all from the same department. But one of them, interestingly enough, matches a name on that list of studio guests you sent me this morning. Eric Scheff.”

  “Really. He was there? I’ll talk to security again and find out what time he signed out,” Chase said. “Let’s run background, and see if he’s licensed to carry concealed. This could be easier than we thought.”

  “We have a student ID picture that I’ll send you to show to Arianna. We can match it to the tapes, if she doesn’t remember seeing him in the studio.”

  Chase stepped away from the mesmerizing view of Hollywood to the laptop he’d opened on Arianna’s kitchen counter, tapping into his Bullet Catcher e-mail box. “How many people have access to the server?”

  “A lot, but we’re getting closer to pinpointing the computer that generated the e-mails.” He heard Lucy’s keyboard clicking in the background. “California online stalker laws say you have to prove beyond a doubt who the sender is; then you can get a restraining order, or even a year in prison and a fine. There. I just sent you what I have on him so far, including a home address and his class schedule.”

  He opened the e-mail to a grainy photo of a pasty-faced, sharp-featured twenty-something. “Got it. Maybe I’ll pay him a visit and scare him off.”

  “Then your problems would be solved,” Lucy said.

  “Possibly.” There was still the matter of Arianna’s visions. “Let me ask you something, Luce. Do you truly believe Arianna is the real deal? As a psychic?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t hesitate, not a nanosecond.

  “How do you know that?”

  This time, a good many nanoseconds passed before she answered. “I just do.”

  Like every one of the Bullet Catchers, he trusted Lucy Sharpe implicitly, and he’d rarely known her to be wrong about anything. “Don’t you think she’s just a sharp guesser? A woman w
ith strong instinct and a good sense of what makes people tick? That doesn’t make her psychic, just intuitive. I think there’s a big difference.”

  “She is intuitive, but she’s also an excellent psychic.”

  Lucy’s instincts couldn’t be ignored. And there was something about Arianna that made him want to throw away logic, reason, and common sense. “Why don’t we run those checks on all the members of the Closure production staff while you have your investigation squad working on the Cal Tech guy?” he asked.

  “Of course. We’ll do that right away.”

  The bedroom door creaked open and he signed off, flipping the phone closed as bare feet pattered along the tile floor. At the sight of Arianna, caffeine and food slipped back on the physical-needs scale. Way back.

  “Hey.” She half yawned, blinking at him and running her fingers through a wild mess of bed head, the gesture tugging a skimpy top, revealing the winged whatever under sleep pants that barely managed to hang on to her hips.

  “Hey yourself,” he said. “Another hour and I was going to send up emergency flares.”

  She smiled, a glorious, sexy grin that matched her glorious, sexy hair and her glorious, sexy…“Is that Tinkerbell?”

  She followed his gaze south and inched the loosely drawn string even lower to reveal the contour of her pelvis. “Yep.”

  “You go one millimeter farther, sweetheart, and that constitutes official flashing.”

  “You stare one second longer, darling, and that constitutes official ogling.” She brushed a single finger over the tattoo. “My mom used to call me Tinkerbell.” She snapped the drawstring back in place and squinted up at him, as if the sunlight suddenly seemed too bright. “Who were you talking to?”

  “Lucy Sharpe. I think we’ve found your cyberstalker.”

  “Wow, you guys work fast.”

  “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon in New York.”

  While she made tea, he told her about their target at Cal Tech. She studied the picture on his computer, then shook her head. “He wasn’t in the audience yesterday.”

  “There were about a hundred people there. You could have missed him.”

  “Not likely. I see every single person, and I don’t forget faces. I would have noticed him. We can pull yesterday’s tapes and look, but I don’t remember him.”

  “Maybe he disguised himself.”

  “Possibly.” She clicked out of his program. “Can I check my e-mail from here?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  She tapped a few keys, absently lifting her hair to reveal a long, pale, slender neck and something fuchsia on her well-toned back. Another tattoo?

  He took a step closer, inching down the thin fabric of her top.

  She didn’t even flinch, just clicked the computer and acted like it was perfectly normal for him to examine her back. “It’s a butterfly. My favorite creature.”

  This one was so beautifully drawn, it looked three-dimensional. “Pretty,” he said, resisting the urge to touch it.

  “My mom used to build butterfly gardens when I was a kid.”

  “Do you have any tattoos that are not inspired by your mother?” Not that it wasn’t a sweet touch, but the constant reminder of Mom might take some of the fun out of tattoo-hunting.

  “I have a great one that’s all mine. But you’d have to go a lot farther down.” She tapped the curve of her backside lightly. “I’d show you, but you’d call it flashing.” She threw a dead sexy glance over her shoulder. “But you’re welcome to look.”

  The invitation shot heat to a body already charged just from being around her. His fingers itched to slide those sleep pants right over her butt, but her gasp and sudden change in posture erased the playfulness of the moment.

  “Shit. He’s back. Look.”

  He read over her shoulder. Unlike the others, this message from catburd was very short.

  sorry i missed you tonight, ari.

  She turned, her eyes clouded with worry. “Missed me? With a bullet?”

  “Let me arrange to get prints on Eric Scheff. And get them taken from your trailer.”

  “All right.” She slipped away from the counter and went back to work on the tea she’d abandoned. “But is that going to stop him?”

  “We have two choices, once we nail him. We can scare the crap out of him, if you want.”

  “I want. What’s our other choice?”

  “Legal channels. Restraining order. Take him to court. Get him in jail for a year, fine him. Could be enough.” He inhaled the vanilla as she poured, and considered just how desperate he was for something warm in a cup.

  “I’d rather avoid the legal channels,” she said, bouncing a silver tea strainer on a chain like a yo-yo, and looking up at him with just enough sleep and sweetness in those green eyes to make him feel like he was on the end of the chain.

  “Why?”

  “Because my dad’s retired LAPD, and he’d find out faster than you can say in-junc-tion.”

  “He’s a cop, and you haven’t told him about these e-mails? Or about hiring a bodyguard?”

  “He’s retired.” She pulled the strainer out of the cup and rained tea drops all over the counter. “But he’s a dad first. It would worry him.”

  Chase thought of his own father, a burly engineer who hid his emotions well, but who had cried openly with relief when Chase left the astronaut corps. Of course, he knew the real risk better than most. “I understand,” he said, picking up the tea towel she’d left crumpled on the counter. “Here.”

  For a second she frowned, like she had no idea what to do with the towel. “Oh, yeah. Finish the job, Arianna,” she said in a singsong voice.

  She wiped the drops and hung the towel neatly over the lip of the sink, giving it a little pat when she was done. “There. You could be a good influence on me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Did you make your bed before you got up for work at noon?”

  She snorted as if the idea were utterly preposterous. “I don’t work today, unless the studio calls for pickups.” She planted her hands on the counter behind her and hoisted her backside up, swinging her legs like it was her favorite seat in the house. “They do all the editing and sound stuff on Fridays, and I don’t have anything to do with that particular kind of make-believe.”

  “No, you handle the other kind of the make-believe.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Not funny.”

  “Come on, Arianna. I was there at the end, remember? You had lines, for God’s sake.”

  “Pickups are different.” She leaned back on both hands, the position jutting her breasts just enough to accentuate the tiny, hardened nipples in yet another ridiculously thin tank top. “You know, I was thinking about you in the middle of the night.”

  That makes two of us.

  “You know what I find amazing?” she continued. “That a man who has been into outer space, seen the world from far away, who has actually touched the sky, doesn’t believe in the afterlife.”

  “Sorry, sweetheart. Too weighty a question when that man has been denied coffee.”

  “What do you believe in, then?”

  “Laws.” He stood a foot in front of her and crossed his arms. “Einstein’s law of relativity, Newton’s laws of motion, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, Bernoulli’s law of lift. I didn’t get into that tin can, as you so eloquently put it, on blind faith. I got in it because I understood the hard, cold facts of science that got it there and back. When you understand science, there’s no room for the paranormal.”

  “But what if you’re wrong? What if you’re thinking with your head, and not your heart?” She reached out and flattened her palm on his chest. “What if your friend’s energy really was in that studio, and he really did want you to have closure, or to know something about his death? Are you willing to take a chance and ignore that life-changing possibility?”

  She had to feel what that did to his pulse. “He wasn’t my friend. And you and I had a deal.” He put his hand o
ver hers and lifted it, but she just gripped tighter, pulling him toward her, spreading her legs enough to ease him into the space of the counter where she sat.

  “The deal was I wouldn’t try to read you and talk to Michael. Not that you wouldn’t talk to me. What happened to him?” She curled her fingers around his, lifting his hand to her mouth. Very softly, she kissed his knuckles, a featherlight air kiss that tightened the band around his chest. She added pressure with her knees on his hips. “Tell me.”

  It was impossible to look at her and lie. Or hide. That was her magic. She was as powerful as gravity and just as undeniable.

  But he could deny it, and he would. “No.” He shook his head, feeling her soft breath on his hand, losing himself in the pull of her grass-green eyes, the urge to climb right on top of her and inside her and exchange his reason for her magic.

  “You need another law to believe in, Rocket Man,” she whispered, brushing his knuckles with her lips. “Killian’s law.” She turned his hand over to graze a kiss on his palm. “Which states that no matter how big a mess you make in life…” Another kiss, and a flick of her tongue. “With enough love and faith and positive energy…” She opened her mouth, suckled the skin at his wrist. “It can be completely cleaned up.”

  The band around his chest slipped as all the blood flowed far away from his brain, instantly swelling him. But the erection wasn’t what forced him closer, it was her. Her eyes, her mouth, her tempting, charming voice.

  She was pure magic.

  “Eventually,” she said, releasing his hand to slide her hands up his arms, slowly enough to explore every muscle, “you will believe me.” She locked her hands behind his neck, never taking her eyes from his, inching him closer to the inevitable meeting of the mouths.

  The kiss was entirely mutual. She parted her lips, and he tasted the tea she’d originally promised: sweet and spicy and hot with attitude. He slanted, deepened, and tongued her thoroughly, closing his hands around her hips and almost lifting her off the counter so the body contact was total and intimate.

  She inched back, lifting her head to invite further exploration of her throat and chest. His hand ached to slide over and touch those nipples he’d just admired. One touch. One taste. One thrust against her. That’s all it would take, then he’d be all over Tinkerbell.